Self-Directed Learning Is For Everyone

Self-directed learning is for everyone. Geoff Graham takes us to the heart of the matter with a quote he posted on Facebook.

“If children started school at six months old and their teachers gave them walking lessons, within a single generation people would come to believe that humans couldn’t learn to walk without going to school.”

“I was such a great learner and then I went to school,” is another quote we often hear that speaks to the issue. We make children dependent on teachers and then we point to that dependency to justify commandeering their learning. It is done by most with the best of intentions, but it really is quite misguided. The focus needs to be brought back to what Peter Gray describes as mother nature’s pedagogy. It is that young people will, of their own volition, learn all that they need to know to survive well within the culture into which they are born.

People who defend conventional schooling are often heard to say, “Some kids need structure,” implying that they need teachers to structure their learning. This is not what produces the independent, lifelong learners who are described as those who will be successful in the Digital Age. It is what turns out high school graduates who are aimless, sometimes for years, trying to find themselves. Learning environments need to provide students with the opportunity to become masterful at directing their own learning, and so we need to be looking at the full gamut of skills and attitudes that lead to people making successes of themselves. This article presents one set of these skills and attitudes that address the problems of self-discipline, willpower and procrastination, all of which contribute to how people structure their learning. A story told by a professor of electrical engineering at a Canadian university sets the stage.

It was the mid 1980’s when computers were finding their way into k-12 schools. The professor had undertaken to give teachers a mini course on digital electronics and his story was about how he had come to be teaching the course.

He had obtained his electrical engineering credentials before digital electronics had established its foothold. He graduated knowing all about analog electricity, but he knew little about digital electronics. At the time, his knowledge of analog was sufficient for him to get his prestigious professorship, but it was not long after that digital electronics was rising to dominance and he was feeling the need to bring himself up to date. He procrastinated, but as digital technology became more prominent, he became increasingly concerned. He felt like a fraud masquerading as a professor of electrical engineering when he knew little about digital electronics.

The more he procrastinated, the more uncomfortable he became with himself, and finally he decided to act. He went to the library and signed out a number of beginner books on digital electronics and he headed home determined to dedicate time every night to learning what he wanted to know.

He described how he diligently kept at the task for about two weeks and then his resolve began to weaken and soon the books were collecting dust. That is how things remained for a time except that his need to learn digital electronics intensified and he decided that sheer self-discipline was not going to be enough to get the job done. He had to create some condition where he could not fail, and his solution involved his family.

He had young children and his wife was a stay at home mom. Money was not plentiful so it was a significant when he went to his wife asking to use $800 of family money to buy a deluxe, “everything you need to know” kit on digital electronics. It would provide the motivating power of hands-on activity and he would have the added pressure of not wanting to disappoint his wife. She approved and one day soon after he arrived home with the kit.

You would think that this would be the end of the story, but not so. That first night at home with the kit he worked late into the night. This continued for about six weeks, but by then the novelty effect had worn off and his effort began to wane. A wife’s scorn is something husbands learn to take in stride. It didn’t have the desired motivating power and as with the books, the kit began to collect dust before he was even close to achieving his goal. He had to somehow up the ante, to find some way to back himself into a corner that gave him absolutely no choice but to succeed.

What finally worked for him was the idea that if you want to know something – teach it. He went to the dean of his faculty and asked to be assigned to teach a first year digital electronics course. He figured he had too much pride to look incompetent to his students, and too much concern for the reputation of the university to permit himself to fail. The dean granted his request and each week he scrambled to stay a step ahead of his students. Week-by-week he completed the course without disgracing himself.

It is said that you have to teach a course at least three times before you feel that you have mastered it. The professor taught the course a number of times and then went again to the dean, this time asking to be assigned to teach the second year course. By the time he was teaching the mini course to the teachers he had accomplished his goal. He had mastered digital electronics, and his self-esteem was restored.

This story is that of a self-directed learner. The professor chose to learn what he saw as essential to live well in his culture. The learning was relevant to his life and the knowledge he acquired was self-taught. He lacked perseverance with the daily work of learning, but he had the willpower to pursue the conditions he needed to succeed, and he never doubted his ability to conquer the learning challenge. He recognized his weakness and he backed himself into a corner that gave him no choice but to succeed. It might be said that he coerced himself to learn, and that is a major distinction between teacher-directed and self-directed learning. Traditional education operates with external coercion robbing students of the opportunity to gain experience in how to coerce themselves.

There is a tendency to think that professors are brilliant individuals, the superstars of society to whom learning comes naturally, but this story tells us otherwise. Learning may come more easily to some people than others, but it takes work, and it takes knowing oneself to compensate for weaknesses and to build on strengths. Young people permitted to direct their own learning stand a better chance of gaining these insights, and there is an attitudinal difference that also needs to be taken into account. The more that students can experience the fruits of their own decisions and hard work, the more likely they are to understand and have confidence in their abilities, and to appreciate the profound satisfaction that comes from conquering tough, meaningful challenges. These are deep-seated attitudes that have a big impact on people’s ability to succeed in life and on their sense of wellbeing.

The 4C’s come into play with self-directed learning. These are creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication, the skills employers say are essential for success in today’s world. Rather than cultivating these skill, traditional schooling may actually be working against their development. For example, considerable attention has been focused on creativity with millions of people having watched Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk about schools killing it, and a study by NASA scientists concluding that “Kids Are Born Creative Geniuses Then Schools Destroy Imagination.”

The professor’s story reveals that he was applying the 4C’s with his learning. He had to exercise creativity and critical thinking to create the conditions needed for him to accomplish his goal. His was a somewhat superficial application of them compared to what people wanting to overcome bigger problems such a weight loss and drug addiction would have to exercise. We see also that he had to collaborate and communicate to accomplish his learning goal. Effective learning is more often than not a community undertaking where people are helping each other, but in public education the atmosphere tends to be competitive with everyone out for themselves. The 4C’s cannot be well honed by people unless they have a high degree of autonomy within a community of learners where everyone is a learner and a teacher.

We do young people no favours by coercing them to learn and providing them with structured learning that is not of their choosing. It is a disservice to graduate students who are dependent on teachers to run their learning agendas. Children and youth need the opportunity to learn about themselves and to develop the self-management aptitudes that are required for independent, lifelong learning. This does not rule out enrolling in formal courses as a way to tap into expertise and force themselves to learn. The difference between choosing to take a course that is seen as useful and one that is mandated to gain a credit for one’s transcript is immeasurable. There is an image used by a renewable energy co-op that helps to make this point. In two side-by-side almost identical photos, a farmer is staring out his window at a close by wind turbine that could be seen as spoiling the view. In one photo he has an angry look on his face and underneath is the caption, “Corporate Owned.” In the other he is smiling and the caption reads, “Co-op Owned.” The implication is that the farmer is happy when he has some ownership. Happy students, meaning students with a strong sense of wellbeing that results in good relations with others requires that they have ownership in their education. For those who need structure, they need to become the architects of the structures that work best for them. Coercion and oppression are the enemies of healthy communities. Clues to how a small steps transformation of public education can be orchestrated in order to provide students with ownership in their education are found on the Ottawa Public Education Remake Initiative.